The idea to create a global forum for preventing and responding to interreligious conflict came to URI President and Founder Rt. Rev. William E. Swing, then-Episcopal Bishop of California, asked to host a UN 50th anniversary celebration at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1995. He found little interest among top religious leaders, but at the grassroots level he found a deep desire for peace and social justice. From this, the idea for a bottom-up global interfaith network was born.
October 2023, LGBTQ, Meaning Making
by Maij Vu Mai
What is religious pluralism to the Survivor? To the one who’s lost faith in themselves? Lost faith in other people? Lost faith in humanity? To the one who’s lost faith in their ability to connect because…
October 2023
by Miranda Hovemeyer
I’ll be honest. I haven’t felt at home in the field of interfaith work for quite a while. During one of the last interfaith conferences I spoke at, I was asked by an older white gentleman why I was there, then insisting…
Arts, October 2023
by Sable Manson
n the spring of 2020, I was working with my higher education colleagues to prepare for an interfaith retreat set on Catalina Island, off the coast of southern California. We had planned numerous…
October 2023, Emerging Interfaith Culture, Interfaith Relationships
by Najeeba Syeed
I’ve written about “casserole” hospitality, an ethic of care demonstrated in America’s Heartland found in communities of various traditions who welcome…
